The Story for the Screenplay

I've been struggling to appropriately frame the story for the movie that will become "The Painter." This afternoon, I decided to do the treatment first instead of going straight into the script, and this is the first part.

THE PAINTER
by
Ford McLain

I. Framing the Story

In the darkness of his study, the man sits in his armchair with his feet propped up on the coffee table. He holds a whiskey in his right hand and a cigar between the index and middle fingers of his left, which rest on his mouth. There is no music and very little sound, except the purring of his cat, Mister B, who is lying between the man and the left arm of the chair.

This is the painter. Fifty-three years old, he is an American citizen expatriated in Spain. He has a full yet mostly gray head of hair, an even grayer and neatly-trimmed goatee. The cottage is warm, and at the moment, the painter wears a pair of khaki shorts, smeared with oil paints on the right side and an opened tropical shirt. His chest hair is as gray as his head.

It is about three o’clock in the morning, and all of the guests who had come for the first screening of his film, “Sexistential,” are gone. Despite its depressing ending, the movie was a hit with the audience – except for one person – and the party that followed was considered one of the best that the painter ever hosted. But most had left a few hours earlier, headed down to the American-owned Clam Shack, which was a five minute walk into town and just off the beach.

Only Sophie, a bartender at the Clam Shack, and Suzi, a writer friend, remain. Suzi went into the bedroom to sleep, and, Sophie fell asleep on the daybed that the painter kept in his study.

The painter is very much awake and very much alone.

“I wish I could apologize to you,” the painter almost says aloud, “but you left in such a hurry.”

Beside him, Mister B tries to rearrange himself but realizes that he is either stuck in his position or that he has to get up and move altogether, so he stays where he is. The painter acknowledges his cat with a scratch on the top of the head and a few strokes from head to tail.

Then he pulls on his cigar, which he had relit not too long before.

As he sits there, the painter ponders the woman that should be there with him, along with Sophie and Suzi. She was not the motivation for making the film, but her story provided the meat and the heart of it. Her original words from her old blog and her recently published novel gave what could have been a meandering plot some substance, and her own personal experiences informed the director and the actors of what this movie truly could have been.

“Well, she is not there,” the painter reminds himself, “and it is your fault. You had to play God and tinker with her story and her vision. The substance abuse and the sociopath lover were not dark enough for you. She wrote of redemption at the end, but you had to take that away from her.”

She had put herself out there for him, for the project, for her art, even though she was uncomfortable with trying to write this story as a movie. He promised that this would be collaboration from start to finish. She trusted that he would respect her words and her experiences, and the painter-turned-producer/director took her words and her feelings, and he twisted her story into something darker than it already was.

Hours after the party ended, the painter believes he could still feel the sting of her right hand against his left cheek, and he can see his freshly lit cigar flying from his mouth as her hand hit his face. Such a violent end to a short but beautiful friendship.

And then, furiously, the painter digs in.

It may have been her words, her experiences, her script, but it was his movie. And he commissioned her to write his movie. And she agreed and signed a contract. Sure, she had never worked with him before, but the painter had never been involved in such a collaborative project as a movie either. He was used to working alone – in writing and in painting, and was used to have things end on his terms.

It is selfish, but that’s how the creative process always worked for him.

And, thinking back on movie, from pre-production to final cut, from the writing to the editing, from getting together a nice mix of beautiful and young actors and crew, from the wonderful nights of drinking and painting and screwing, and from seeing his final vision on the screen, the painter smiles and realizes that he would not have it any other way.